


Venti Chai Latte

by newdog14



Series: Cafe a la Billdip [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Barista!Bill, Human Bill Cipher, I'm so sorry Starbucks, M/M, Sleep deprived! Dipper, hipster!Bill, this was fun to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:43:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6437758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newdog14/pseuds/newdog14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know what? Fuck you, you overly cheery asshole. I know that I've had an unhealthy amount of coffee tonight, believe me, I know. But it's three am and the middle of finals week and I’ve barely slept in the last 48 hours and I still have six pages of physics calculations to work through. So why don't you get off your high fucking horse and give me my overpriced coffee with the goddamned apathy and self-loathing that's meant to define your fucking job, you pretentious hipster douchebag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Venti Chai Latte

As far as cities went, Portland probably wasn’t the worst, but everything in it was still inanely expensive and Dipper was fairly certain that every permanent resident was required to act as pretentious as humanly possible. The one saving grace of this hipster hell was the twenty-four hour Starbucks that was within walking distance of his apartment.

Dipper had visited the coffee shop many times throughout the semester, but he’d never attempted to work there before. Oddly enough, an environment full of squealing white girls really wasn’t conducive to studying. However tonight he had no choice, as his dear sister had commandeered the living room of their shared apartment for her “study group”, which in his opinion was just like every other sleepover she’d ever had, but with the additional activity of ignoring open textbooks.

After thirty minutes of glaring at his own textbook while trying to block out shitty pop music, Dipper had packed up his books, notes, and laptop and fled his apartment.

It was around eight when he walked in, and he sighed with relief at the nearly desolate coffee shop. Sure, he still had to listen to Don’t Start Unbelieving, but at least now it was at a reasonable volume. And more importantly, he had a Venti Chai Latte to help his focus.

His first few hours at Starbucks were fine; the store was relatively desolate this late at night, and the few remaining patrons had the human decency to keep their voices down and not shout to each other across the room. The baristas were nice and the girl at the register, a cute red head named Wendy, had managed to memorize his order by the fourth time he’d made it. Over the course of four hours he’d managed to finish the study guide for his calculus class, and he was about halfway through the essay that was taking the place of his English final when everything went to shit in the form of the twelve o’clock shift change.

The differences were subtle at first. The other patrons seemed to leave all at once, and the majority of the night crew seemed determined to hide in the kitchen, leaving one poor soul to man the register. Dipper might have pitied him if he didn’t look so damn happy about it.

At about twelve thirty Dipper found that his cup was once again empty, and that was when he realized just how horrible cheery people truly were.

“What can I get for ya?” the barista asked, grinning ear to ear. It was just a little bit unnerving in Dipper’s opinion. The man had tan skin and blonde hair, and he had a slew of buttons with symbols pinned to his apron. Some he recognized, like the Eye of Providence, but most of them he’d never seen before. The strangest thing about him was his nametag, which read Yroo. Dipper was fairly certain that Yroo wasn’t a real name, but he was worried he’d insult the man if he asked.

“Venti Chai Latte,” Dipper said as he pulled out his debit card.

“And your name?” he asked as he wrote the order on the cup.

Dipper raised an eyebrow, “I’m the only one here.”

‘Yroo’ just shrugged and rang him up, and Dipper moved down the counter to wait for his drink.

“I’m the only one here!” Yroo called, and Dipper couldn’t help but gape at him.

“You’re kidding right?” he asked as he accepted the beverage.

He looked Dipper in the eyes and, without so much as a hint of humor on his face, said, “I take my job very seriously.”

More than a little creeped out, Dipper returned to writing his essay. He managed to get two more pages down before his cup was empty again.

“You know most people would be out having fun this late on a Friday night,” said the barista, and his amused smirk made the statement a good three times more insulting than it should have been.

“Well most people don’t have two Saturday finals,” Dipper said, “Venti Chai Latte.”

“Gonna tell me your name this time?” he asked.

“I’m still the only person here ‘Yroo’,” Dipper said, and his air quotes made the other man burst out laughing.

“Well that’s a terrible name,” he said, then turned to make the drink. Dipper thought that he didn’t really have a leg to stand on in the terrible names argument, but it did support the theory that ‘Yroo’ wasn’t his actual name.

“Pine Tree!” he called.

“Pine Tree?” Dipper asked incredulously, “Seriously?”

“If you don’t tell people your name, they have the right to refer to you by what you’re wearing,” he said, pointing to Dipper’s hat, “It’s a universal law, don’t act like you’re surprised.”

Dipper rolled his eyes, “Whatever you say, Illuminati.”

“Now you’re getting it!” he said with a grin, Dipper gave an exasperated sigh and then returned to his laptop.

As Dipper continued to work on his essay, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. At first he just wrote it off as a combination of sleep deprivation and too much coffee. Then he looked up and realized that, no, it wasn’t just him, he was literally being watched by the crazy barista. The man was staring at him as if he was trying to bore a hole in his head, and he didn’t even has the decency to look embarrassed at being caught. He just gave Dipper the biggest shit eating grin that had ever graced the face of any douchebag.

Dipper glared at him, then turned back to his essay. He just needed a conclusion and then his rough draft would be done. However after what seemed like hours (but was probably only a few minutes) of staring at his blinking cursor and aggressively drinking coffee, he realized that his cup was empty again and he was still being stared at. With a sigh he saved his work and then returned to the counter.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but most people consider it rude to stare,” Dipper said, and the grin he got in return was enough to make him want to punch the guy, “And when you stare at someone for an _hour_ , it’s just downright creepy.”

He laughed, “That’s not _my_ fault though. _You_ named me Illuminati, so I _have_ to watch your every move.”

Dipper frowned at the logic, “You nicknamed me Pine Tree, but you don’t see me growing roots.”

“How about this then, why don’t we just drop the nicknames entirely? I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” He sing-songed, and Dipper realized that he had absolutely planned out this entire exchange. Dipper glared at him again.

“Venti Chai Latte,” he said.

“For?”

Dipper sighed as the barista tapped his pen on the cup. He really didn’t want to tell this guy his name, but he wasn’t going to get any work done if the guy kept staring at him like he had been, “Dipper.”

“The name’s Bill Cipher, pleased to meet ya!” he said, writing Dipper’s name with a completely unnecessary flourish of his pen. Dipper sighed and moved down the counter.

“Dipper!” Bill called, and Dipper glared at him as he took his drink. Bill smiled at him again, big and bright and full of energy, and Dipper’s frown only deepened.

“It is unnatural how cheery you are,” he said, and Bill burst out laughing.

Dipper shook his head in dismay before returning to his table. Bill continued to laugh uncontrollably, and Dipper did his best to tune him out. After so many years of living with Mabel, Dipper was very good at tuning people out.

He knocked out his conclusion in record time, then pulled out his physics notes. If he could just get through these he would consider tonight a success. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.

“Hey Dipper!” Bill shouted, and Dipper nearly fell out of his chair in surprise. Bill started laughing again, seemingly undeterred by the glare Dipper was leveling at him.

“What?” he hissed out, and Bill wiped an imaginary tear from his eye as he regained his composure.

“I was just bored is all,” he said, “Staring at cute guys is only fun for so long you know.”

Dipper was equal parts flustered and creeped out, so naturally all he could muster up in response was indigent spluttering. Bill started laughing again, and Dipper had to fight the urge to throw his text book at him. But only because the book was a rental, and throwing it across the room would probably damage it.

He threw one last glare at Bill before turning back to his work. If he could just get through these calculations then he could go back to his apartment and then he would never have to see Bill again.

Bill made a few more attempts to get Dipper to talk to him, mainly just whining his name, and Dipper made a truly valiant effort to ignore him. Then Bill switched to rambling aimlessly, and Dipper found that tuning out his annoyingly high pitched voice was quickly becoming impossible.

Bill switched topics at the most random times, and there didn’t seem to be any sort of connection between them except for that they were all crazy. First he was going on about his favorite band, The Henchmaniacs, whom Dipper had never heard of. Then he went on to explain that Pluto didn’t actually exist, and the hullabaloo about it losing its planetary status was just a test to see how effective government propaganda was.

“Speaking of brainwashing,” he hadn’t been, “Did you know that most of the drinks on the Starbucks menu are infused with chemicals that make you more susceptible to suggestion and hive mind syndrome? I haven’t figured out all of them, but I know for a fact that Pumpkin Spice, White Chocolate Mocha, and Carmel Macchiato all have it. They like to mix it up sometimes though, that’s why I only ever get my coffee from local organic shops. It’s much safer that way because they actually care about their customers, as opposed to _this_ cold corporate machine-”

“Oh my god will you just shut up already?” Dipper nearly shouted, and Bill looked at him the way a nun looked at someone who’d just sworn in a church. Dipper knew what that looked like because he’d done it once while visiting his grandparents. His grandmother had nearly disowned him that day, and she still looked down at him for it.

However having seen that look of shocked personal offense before did nothing to help him fix things now. Not that he wanted to, because Bill was a total douchebag, but Bill was also a douchebag who made coffee and was probably insane, so maybe pissing him off wasn’t a great idea.

Bill seemed to overcome his shock fairly quickly, but he now held himself like a petulant child and Dipper just _knew_ he was going to regret responding to him, “That was rude. But I know you didn’t mean it, you’re just too hopped up on caffeine to think clearly.”

“I’m what now?” Dipper asked.

Bill rolled his eyes as though he was explaining the most basic concept in the world, “Caffeine, in addition to being horrible for your health, also makes people more irritable. And you have almost certainly had too much, I may have to cut you off actually.”

“Cut me off?” Dipper said, rising from his seat to go yell at Bill properly, “Just who the hell do you think you are?”

Bill smiled sweetly at him, and Dipper had never thought of himself as a violent person but if ever he was going to become one, it would be because of Bill, “I’m your barista of course, and therefore it’s my job to make sure that you don’t have more than you can handle.”

Dipper glared at him as he slammed his card on the counter, “I’ll take four shots of espresso please.”

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Bill said, smile _finally_ slipping, “Seriously, that might just kill you, and I can’t-”

“You know what?” Dipper cut him off, “Fuck you, you overly cheery asshole. I know that I've had an unhealthy amount of coffee tonight, believe me, I know. But it's three am and the middle of finals week and I’ve barely slept in the last 48 hours and I still have six pages of physics calculations to work through. So why don't you get off your high fucking horse and give me my overpriced coffee with the goddamned apathy and self-loathing that's meant to define your fucking job, you pretentious hipster douchebag.”

Bill gaped at him for a good minute before he took the money and rung him up without saying a word. Dipper moved down the counter, still fuming, as Bill flitted about behind the counter. It wasn’t until he sat the drink in front of him that Dipper noticed he hadn’t made what he’d asked for.

“The hell is this?” he asked.

“It’s a Very Berry Refresher,” Bill said, “It’s good for thinking. Cause of the fruit.”

“I asked for-”

“You asked for a heart attack in a cup,” Bill said, “But since I don’t even want to _know_ how much of a hassle having you die in here would be, I’m giving you this instead.”

They had a sort of staring contest for a few minutes, neither willing to back down. Dipper broke first, because Bill was just unnerving with his ability to stare at someone, and he reluctantly grabbed the drink and returned to his seat.

The drink was sweeter than he would have expected fruit water to be, but it wasn’t bad. And Bill had been right, it was good for helping him think. Though he’d never had admitted that out loud.

Bill didn’t say anything else while Dipper worked, and Dipper didn’t dare look up to see what he was doing. He focused on working out his physics problems, and he was on the last page when his phone went off, and Dipper glanced down to see that it was nearly five. Mabel, ever the early bird, had texted him trying to figure out where he was.

_Sorry, I’m still at Starbucks._

_Seriously? That’s super unhealthy Dipper. :/ Don’t you have exams today? D:_

_Not till late. I’ll be fine._

_Get back here now, you’re going to sleep! >:( Oh but can you get me a coffee first? :3_

_Yeah, what do you want?_

_Grande Ice Carmel Macchiato with extra whip. B)  Thanks broski! <3_

Dipper sighed and packed up his stuff, then made his way to the counter, “Grande Ice Carmel Macchiato with extra whip.”

Bill raised an eyebrow, “Really?”

“It’s for my sister! Will you just make it already?” Dipper snapped. The exhaustion of the past few days was finally hitting him, and he really just wanted to go home.

Bill smirked at him as he scribbled the order on the cup, and Dipper did his best not to fall asleep on his feet as he waited for the overly complicated drink. Bill handed it to him with a look of amusement that made Dipper nervous, but he was too tried to try and figure out why just then.

Dipper made his way out of the Starbucks and back to his apartment, and Bill watched him go. He’d been surprised that the kid hadn’t commented on what was written in place of a name, but then maybe he just hadn’t noticed. He could only hope that his sister was more observant.

 

XoXoXoXoX

 

After sending her brother to bed Mabel set to work on making breakfast for her friends. They weren’t quite awake yet, but there was no better wakeup call than fresh pancakes with sprinkles. She sipped her Macchiato as she mixed the batter, trying not to squeal in excitement at what was written on the cup.

_Ask your brother to call me? 458-321-4004 –Bill_


End file.
